[.ca] Death Of Sweet Mister (ISBN 0399147519)

From Amazon.com:
Penzler Pick, June 2001: This is Daniel Woodrell's third book set in the Ozarks and, like the other two, Give Us a Kiss and Tomato Red, it peels back the layers from lives already made bare by poverty and petty crime, exposing the reader to the raw everyday hopes and fears of the poor and the helpless. Told through the voice of an overweight 13-year-old boy named Shuggy Atkins, this is the story of Shug; the one person who loves him, his mother Glenda; and her boyfriend Red, a brutal and ignorant man. Red hates Shug but uses him to break into houses to steal drugs and anything else that can be sold. Glenda makes a meager living looking after the local cemetery and spends her time trying to keep Red amused and away from Shug, whom he loves to humiliate but whom she adores. Glenda is Shug's only champion. She calls him Sweet Mister as she continually boosts his confidence and promises a better life for him, if not for herself. But when Glenda sees a beautiful, green Thunderbird with leather seats and its driver, Jimmy Vin Pearce, a chain of events is set into motion that will end in violence and bloodshed. Glenda must keep hidden from Red her infatuation with Jimmy Vin's money and fine clothes while she and Shug dream separate dreams of making a new life away from the violence. Woodrell writes books that are small in volume but large in scope. It is impossible to put down this story of less than 200 pages until the final tragedy unfolds. --Otto Penzler

haunting realism:
If you want happy endings or the standard themes so common with mystery books look elsewhere. This harsh look at a realistic world has themes such as domestic violence, career crime, incest, abandonment and betrayl and the generational progression of these scenes. The power of the images here remind me of the shock & power in the closing scene of "The Grapes of Wrath".

Red, what an ...:
The Death of Sweet Mister is a very well written novel. Red has to be one of the biggest \ovillians\c in literary history. There was no problem, specifically with Death of Sweet Mister. I would just say that it lacked drama when drama was most called for, and the in general \ofeel\c of it all lacked the southern gothic feel perhaps woodrell was going for. A good read, albeit not an extrodinary one.

Just Tragic:
Set in Missouri this is the story of Shug Akins, a 13-year-old boy and the tough life he leads with Glenda his alcoholic mother and Red, her cruel boyfriend. Shug's life is far from normal and even further from ideal. The only person in the world who loves Shug is his mother, but although she tries to protect him with sweet words of encouragement - referring to him as her Sweet Mister - Red's hatred and meanness digs its way through to him. Although Red hates Shug, he is not above using him for his criminal ventures. His favourite is making Shug break into people's houses to steal their prescription drugs. When Red's around, Shug and Glenda huddle together in fear, walking on eggshells for fear of setting him off. When Red's not around Shug pleads with Glenda to leave Red and end their misery, but Glenda needs a man around and just can't bring herself to leave. It's not until a stranger enters the scene, giving Glenda the hope that she may be able to escape Red's clutches that the story, and Shug's life, is thrown into utter chaos. The result is violent, taking a terrible toll on the tiny family. This is an exquisitely told story that is as striking in its tragedy as it is in the perfect imagery that Woodrell's prose evokes. The tragedy in the story lies in the confusion experienced by Shug, thanks to his exclusive exposure to his dysfunctional family. He sees things that no 13-year-old child should see and tries things that no child should use. Woodrell has written a book that I found unputdownable. The characters aren't particularly likable in fact, some of them are very hateable, but the emotion is perfectly captured, the story is thought provoking and leaves you feeling sadly shocked by the end.

Down He Forgot As Up He Grew:
Have you ever truly, physically "ached" with pity? When I closed "Death of Sweet Mister," I shut my eyes and hoped to forget Shugg Akins, but knew I never would. I just sat there dry-eyed and hollow. This is quite a testament to author Daniel Woodrell's skill, but at a price I'm not certain I wanted to pay. Shugg aka "Morris" aka Sweet Mister is fat and thirteen, a bit of an outcast with his peers (because he's fat? poor? at the bottom of the poor white trash social scale? -- we don't know.) Shugg, our narrator is bright, quick, and a pragmatist through and through. He goes along to get along. His only champion is his mother Glenda, a pretty lady whose looks didn't get her very far, whose only weapons are persistent sensuousness and an ever-present silver thermos containing rum-laced "tea." Shugg's nominal father (probably not) is Red Akins, a cruel, brutal, truly evil man whose purpose in life is drinking, drugging and make certain Shugg and Glenda's lives were spent in abject humiliation. Red is not smart, but he is a shrewd and cunning, formidable foe. "Foe" is the wrong word for Red; you'd no more oppose him than an evil force of nature. I once read of an Australian Wandering Spider, one of the most venomous spiders in the world who is so aggressive that if you try to kill him, say with a broom, he climbs right up the broom handle and goes after you, and isn't satisfied with one bite--he keeps on biting till he's through. Red is a subhuman Wandering Spider. Red and his pal Basil drag Shugg with them to steal drugs from terminally ill people and doctors' offices, the theory being if Shugg gets caught, as a juvenile, he will only be reprimanded. Shugg complies in his sheer terror of Red, and descriptions of this overweight, clumsy boy trying to be a second story man are both pathetic and ironically funny. What Shugg lacks in physical aptitude, he makes up for in clever quick wittedness far beyond anything Red would understand. When Glenda has a torrid affair with a man who has a green T-Bird, the inexorable tragedy must play itself out. Everyone is in place: murderous Red, loyal Basil, and Shugg who has been taught to love his mother too much and knows he has not a song, but a scream, in his heart. Glenda's Sweet Mister is gone. Woodrell is powerful, concise and unsparing. "Death of Sweet Mister'" is compelling, well-written, but not for everyone. With a tragedy, there are no alternate endings. -sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer

Astonishing:
This book is excellent. A short book and a quick read, it packs a wallop. Woodrell is good, but this book was a real surprise. One of the best books I've read in a while.